How is the project lifecycle managed and monitored?

The project management lifecycle has five phases: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closing.

During the start-up and planning phases, the project obtains the necessary approvals, the plan is created, and the work actually starts with the activity.

The execution phase and the monitoring phase occur at the same time. this means that as you complete the activity, you are monitoring your progress.

once the project plan is finalized and approved, the project manager monitors the progress to ensure that the corresponding activities are completed.

Project lifecycle

How do I monitor activity completion?


There are four main types of monitoring that a project manager should focus on:

▪ Plan Monitoring Change Monitoring
▪ Quality Monitoring
▪ Cost Monitoring


Project Manager has an activity plan and the estimated duration of each activity. Therefore, at the end of each day, week, or month, the project manager should be able to report whether the project is on track.

In order to report in this way, the project manager needs to know from each team member:

▪ what they are currently doing.
▪ How many hours they spent on this activity.
▪ How many hours are left to complete this activity.


With this information, the project manager can compare the actual completion with the expected completion and determine whether the reality is in line with expectations.


Some activities take less time than expected, and some activities take longer than expected, which is to be expected. A developer might tell a project manager that it takes 3 hours to create a web page, although it is expected to take 10 hours. Similarly, an activity is expected to take 5 hours, but takes 8 hours. Therefore, daily tracking is useful, but it must be viewed from the perspective of the progress of the entire project.

When a project manager compares activities completed each week with those planned to be completed, stakeholders will focus on the milestones in the planning and delivery of the entire project. That's where gantt charts are particularly useful —because they let you see where milestones are in the project calendar calendar.

Many project management software tools can display the percentage of activity completed. TThis helps you see your progress and shows the likelihood that you will complete a sufficient number of activities within your plan to achieve major milestones.

What happens when a change occurs?

The section above explains how to monitor the actual completion of the activity and the expected completion of the activity.


But what if the actual activity changes? What if a customer changes their mind and wants something completely different? What would you do if you found that the law had changed halfway through the project and the new requirements required additional work?

Typically, project management is applied to environments where teams can accurately predict which activities will be needed. If you don't know what features you need or what you need to do, then you should do more research.

Project managers often object to changes in scope. Changing the list of results, deliverables, and project mid-term activities requires modifying the project plan and obtaining new signatures from decision makers. Therefore, changes in scope and the addition of activities to a project are exceptions, not the norm.

The project manager measures the number of change requests and additional activities added to the project. Team members will find unforeseen problems as they complete activities and build solutions, and some problems will surface. The project manager keeps track of these issues. If they require additional activities, the project manager will look at how to complete them while meeting the milestone commitments.

What else do I need to pay attention to when monitoring a project?

Each deliverable must meet the customer's expectations. Digital products at least have no bugs. You have to make sure that the product performs as expected (for example, it is not acceptable to spend 5 seconds loading a web page).


There is usually a member of the team who tests the deliverables to make sure they work as expected. This person is usually a member of the quality assurance (QA) team, but sometimes it can also be a developer or project manager who does a lot of testing.


Testing should not be done at the end of the project. It is important to conduct quality checks consistently during the execution phase.
The project manager also needs to monitor the cost of the project. If the project incurs additional costs, then it may not bring profits to your company.


While team members spending longer completing activities is a source of cost increases, there are other reasons why project costs can exceed budget:

• ▪ other materials (such as hardware, servers, etc.).
• ▪ Increase the use of suppliers.
• ▪ A large number of defects must be fixed by you.

The partial report on the completion of each milestone should indicate whether the project is still within the specified budget.
In fact, project monitoring runs through the life cycle of a project – from start to finish, it allows the project team to understand the current status of the project, the steps taken, as well as budgets, schedules, and scope projections. Project managers can rely on project management software to perform all the tasks required for a successful project.


Good software can support project teams so they can manage all the details of a successful project. Software PM project management software is geared toward real-time transactions and can help managers plan, monitor and report on projects, as well as help teams manage and collaborate.

Project lifecycle

The Software PM system has a complete audit trail, project planning and execution are in sync, and the time and progress of each project activity and deliverable can be automatically tracked.

The completion rate and deliverables of the next tier activity are automatically aggregated to the previous tier of activity, and overdue activities are automatically illuminated with a red light, automatically sending early warning information to all affected stakeholders. The Software system is therefore suitable for a variety of complex team collaborations.

With Software PM, you can easily complete each stage of the project management lifecycle, or you can achieve granular management for different project stages. If you need help with your project and are looking for a better way to manage tasks and teams